Friday, August 24, 2012

School, Week 1

&aIn other news, Bob started school on Tuesday.  First grade.  His first experience with all-day school, cafeteria food, and other things.


It's supposed to be a good school; private, a bit expensive, there are uniforms (basically business casual), etc. Lots of talk about honor, respect, honesty, etc. The expected never-ending requests for donations of time and money, I'm sure. And it seems okay so far, but there have been a few glitches.

For example, no one apparently explained lunchtime procedures, either to us (we've had 3 hours of "orientation" so far) or the kids (unless Bob didn't hear that part). So, Bob didn't know that there were separate lunch lines, and he ended up with nacho bar instead of a sandwich on Tuesday. He'll survive. A talk with the teacher this morning cleared things up, but this should be in the handbook, I think. I can't answer Bob's questions if I don't know the answers.

Also, unfortunately, we've already had to find the Lost & Found. Even more unfortunately, I don't think our Lost thing will ever be Found, which means that (probably - I'm hoping for recovery) someone, not to sugar-coat it, stole my kid's Snuggle Puppy backpack clip on the second day of school, and that said Someone is one of his classmates.

Yes, it's my fault for putting Snuggle in Bob's backpack pocket for a first week security blanket, and Bob's for not zipping the pocket. But still. As near as I can tell, it had to fall out in his classroom, with the teacher and other people around. We looked in the hallways, cubbies, and classroom. No luck. Teacher hasn't been overly helpful (I get the impression she's not friendly with the parents, but I hope that's just me being defensive and tired and anti-social this week) regarding lost Snuggle, either. Wich leads to my supposition that some other little kid saw Snuggle, liked him, and absconded with him, knowingly or not. Sucks majorly. So much for honesty and integrity and all that.

Also, the Lost and Found? It's a cheap pop-up hamper in the main hallway. No sign, so we had to ask three people before we figured it out. No supervision, so honestly if someone sees a nice item in the hamper, they can take it and no one would ever know.

So now, I'm off to search the Internet for a Teenie Pillow Pet dog for less than $15. Which sucks more because I got ours on clearance after Christmas for something like $2. But it's my fault he's lost, so I'll replace him.

Freak out Follow Up

So, last time on the amazingly neglected blog, I was dealing with the Dali/Coin conundrum, and vision issues.

The Dali issue was not so traumatic as I expected.  That day turned out to be bicycle day at Summer Camp, and an extra half hour racing his friends around the parking lot meant that Bob didn't give a fig about missing Dali or the coins (whichever ended up being the actual program).

The eye issue is an ongoing thing.  Bob had a two-hour checkup with an optometrist who specializes in pediatric patients - which meant having his eyes dilated, and whatever the doctor used was heavy-duty stuff, because he was still dilated a week and a half later.  And that led to my mother worrying that his eyes were still dilated.  And yes, we called the doctor, who said "drop by" the office (which is a 40 minute drive, so "dropping by" isn't that convenient).  We dropped, occupied the waiting room chairs for 20 minutes, and an assistant took a 20-second look to tell us that it's fine and can take up to 10 days to go back to normal.  And why couldn't they mention the 10-day timeframe the first time around???  Who knows.

Long story short: Bob has, as far as the optometrist can tell, micro-strabisimus in his left eye, meaning the focus is a bit off or out of sync with the other eye.  She prescribed 2 hours of eye exercises a day - things like stringing beads, putting toothpicks into a straw, tracing things, etc.  That was easy to do before school started, but this week has been a mess.  Trying to fit this into the evening, along with dinner, homework, bedtime routines, and play time, is a serious headache.  I hope it gets better as we get the routine fine-tuned.  We go back for a follow-up in 5 weeks, and if this hasn't worked, I don't know what the next step is.  Google results mentioned surgery, but that was for cases caught a bit younger and suddenly - since Bob's vision last year was 20/20, I'm not sure how something sort of sudden compares to a case that may not have been so sudden.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Another reason to freak out

Yeah, the blog's been ignored this summer.  Serious lack of computer time, since the computer is upstairs and a certain kid doesn't like to be downstairs alone.  And the Kindle Fire, while internet-capable, does not work well with Blogspot.

So.  Today is NOT my day.

Small issue:  we're signed up tomorrow for a program at the campus art & archaeology museum.  Which, thanks to lousy luck, starts at the same time that summer camp is ending, and it's a 20-minute drive/walk from one to the other, but we can leave camp early in a pinch.  But the issue: the schedule I picked up at the museum this spring says the program is supposed to be about coins, while the schedule online says the subject of the day is Dali.  Bob (not his real name) is interested in the antique coins, but not so much with the Dali.  So, I call to double-check, and am told that it's Dali.  Crap.  So, I get to tell Bob that we're not really going to the museum tomorrow, and he'll probably be grumpy about me "ruining" his fun.  Ah well.  We're still doing summer camp, plus pajama party at the library in the morning, so it's not like he's at home staring at the ceiling.

Big issue (Big Big issue.  Freak-me-out issue referred to above):  Eyesight.  In short, mine sucks royally, and the one thing I was really really wanting was for Bob to not inherit the crap eyesight.  We've been going along fine until now.  He had his first optometrist visit last fall, 20/20 in both eyes, everything's fine.  Passed the amblyopia screening at school with no problems.  Then, Monday, he had his annual visit to the pediatrician, and didn't do so well in their quick-n-dirty vision screening.  Right eye fine, left eye "blurry." 

So we say "Uh oh" and called our optometrist after we got home.  He spent an hour with her this morning - got his pupils dilated, nifty little digital pic of his retinas, the whole shebang.  Right eye, still good.  (Okay, a touch of astigmatism in one eye, but still.)  Left eye, not so much.  Still blurry, but oddly, the optometrist can't see anything that would make it all blurry.  So we're getting sent for a second opinion.  Joy.

I will NOT Google this.  My Reader's Digest/Discovery/anatomy class medical education is enough to worry me as it is.  If the eye itself looks fine, but the brain is getting fuzzy pictures, that makes my medical non-education think that it's maybe something else, like problems with the optic nerve or whichever part of the brain is in charge of visual processing.  And neither of those can probably be fixed with glasses. 

The really odd part is that he hasn't mentioned anything, and he's a bright enough kid that surely he would have said something about reading being hard.  Because he's been reading like a fiend all summer - Magic School Bus, Magic Tree House, he's discovered all my Calvin & Hobbes and Foxtrot books, plus anything he can find about the Titanic, or other shipwrecks, or Dr Ballard.  Of course, he's also a bit of a hypochondriac at times, he comes home from Grandma's house with a limp to match hers, and a cough to go with Grandpa's.  But this seems too consistent.